Teaching Tuesdays@CSU
Teaching Tips & Links for SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING
Issue 35 - Rubrics Demystified . . . . . . . Writing measurable criteria and standards
Writing criteria and standards is a tough challenge many of us would rather prioritise to the bottom of the list!
The word rubric is far from the top of the favourites list.
BUT rubrics provide a guide and are a great way of communicating to students exactly what you are looking for in their assessment tasks.
Criterion-referenced assessment is a way of life at Charles Sturt University (CSU) so in this week's bulletin, Deb Murdoch, Assessment and Quality Leader at CSU is providing some tips to help you get started on either a new set of criteria and standards or revising old ones.
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Implementing the CSU Value INSIGHTFUL in your teaching.
An insightful approach means we remove ambiguity, we are each clear and agreed about our goals and actions, and we better position ourselves for success.
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Criterion-referenced Assessment and Rubrics
By: Deborah Murdoch, CSU
A few things to remember as you develop your criteria and standards.
- There are a few different formats you can use when putting together the information, including: a table, commonly called a rubric; a combined list of criteria with a table of standards; a list format. For more information look for Formats for marking criteria and standards on the Division of Learning and Teaching website or the CSU Subject Outline Tool help.
- Rubrics are a great way of communicating to students exactly what you are looking for in the levels of skills and application of knowledge in the context or professional practice you are assessing.
- Rubrics are about clearly communicating the minimum level of what you are asking for in your assessment task for each of the passing grades. They are not intended to be limiting at the highest level. A fail column can be included if want to clearly spell out to students what they are still to achieve.
- Rubrics can be an excellent form of feedback to provide guidance for the next task in your subject. The use of highlighting or commenting on what students achieve in relation to the standards in the rubric is a fast and efficient method of communication.
Writing criteria
For each of the outcomes you plan to meet with the task:
- First, analyse the skills you are assessing in your assessment tasks. These are the actions students will take with their knowledge of content in the task and should relate directly to subject learning outcomes. This is what students will express or demonstrate in their responses to the task.
- Then, analyse what the content or knowledge area is you are assessing.
- And then, think about how students might apply that to practice.
Once you have these three things straight, you are ready to write your criteria.
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BONUS TIP: The skills and knowledge remain the same, regardless of the format, type or method of your assessment. They are what you are assessing each time you meet the chosen outcomes. So, you could ask for responses in a number of different assessment types in different sessions but the skills and knowledge for the task would remain the same in relation to the learning outcomes being assessed.
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A criterion is a principle or standard by which something may be judged or decided (Oxford English Dictionaries, 2018), so the criteria tell students what they will be judged on in their assessment task.
To write criteria:
Firstly, formulate the identified action, knowledge and context into a statement.
This statement should describe the end result of what the outcome is asking for.
For example, the statement “Design a spreadsheet that will record accurate information about given transactions and write a report for management explaining the results of the calculations”
will describe the outcome “develop digital skills using electronic spreadsheets to record and report on financial transactions.”
Next, return to your analysis of the learning outcome.
In our example, the skill is for students to develop digital skills using electronic spreadsheets. What does that mean for skill development?
That students can
- create a spreadsheet in a digital format.
- enter data in a spreadsheet using formulas to calculate results.
- analyse the data from a spreadsheet.
- write a report explaining the data to a particular audience.
So, there are four skills to be assessed based on this outcome and potentially two reasonable criteria to be created.
Criterion 1: Create a spreadsheet and enter data from a given set of information using formulas to calculate results.
Criterion 2: Analyse and report on the data explaining the data to the manager of your division.
Writing standards
Next, the standards for the criteria to meet the level of the outcomes need to be written. Writing performance standards is probably the most difficult part of writing a rubric (Burton, 2015). The performance standard (or descriptor) tells students the level of quality they will be marked on in their assessment task.
To write the standards:
Firstly, have a look at SOLO taxonomy (Biggs, n.d.) or Revised Bloom’s taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) and decide the PASS level standard that meets your outcome. In the case used here, students need to have digital skills, be able to enter data and use formulas in electronic spreadsheet to calculate the results and analyse and report on data.
So, if we create a rubric (a table form of marking criteria and standards) it might look like this.
It is tough getting the differentiation between the standards but it is best to use terminology based on the taxonomies given in SOLO and Bloom’s rather than using subjective terms such as excellent, well described, some or most. These terms can be ambiguous and open to interpretation by markers and students (Burton, 2015).
The best advice is to work in a team with your markers to collaboratively design the rubric and provide feedback so that a consistent understanding of what is required is developed as you develop the marking rubric. If your markers can understand and moderate using the rubric, you are well on the way for your students to understand and use it to guide their thinking for the assessment task.
References
Biggs, J. (n.d.). SOLO Taxonomy. Retrieved from John Biggs: http://www.johnbiggs.com.au/academic/solo-taxonomy/
Burton, K. (2015). Continuing my journey on designing and refining criterion-referenced assessment rubrics. Journal of Learning Design, 8(3): 1-13.
Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom's taxonomy: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 212-219. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2
Oxford English Dictionaries. (2018). Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/criterion
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Good News! … New Teaching & Learning, and Leadership Resources at CSU
The Learning Academy, Division of Learning and Teaching at CSU has now upgraded the CSU institutional subscription to the Magna Publications suite of resources.
Regular readers of Teaching Tuesdays@CSU will already be familiar with our Magna Commons access. Now the same login will provide access to the Mentor Commons database.
As well, we now have access to The Teaching Professor and the Academic Leader.
And finally, we have access to Monday Morning Mentor, 20-minute video and text resources released each Monday and available for one week.
These resources are only available to CSU staff and so subscription instructions cannot be published on publicly accessible publications such as Teaching Tuesdays@CSU.
CSU staff, watch What’s New for access details, or contact:
Ellen McIntyre – emcintyre@csu.edu.au
Matthew Larnach – mlarnach@csu.edu.au
Now for some details:
The Teaching Professor. Edited by respected scholar and author, Dr Maryellen Weimer, The Teaching Professor keeps readers informed of pedagogically sound techniques, new ideas, strategies that work, and pragmatic approaches for enhancing student learning and improving instructional effectiveness, regardless of teaching modality or academic discipline.
Academic Leader provides the information deans, chairs, and other academic decision-makers use for effective leadership within their colleges or departments and fulfil their institution’s primary missions of teaching and scholarship.
Magna Commons offers on-demand versions of Magna's most popular Magna Online Seminars, covering a broad range of topics of interest to faculty & administrators.
20-Minute Mentor Commons offers on-demand versions of Magna's popular 20-Minute Mentor programs, covering a broad range of faculty development topics.
Monday Morning Mentor has the same format as 20-Minute Mentor with each topic available for one week.
Examples related to Assessment
From The Teaching Professor:
From Mentor Commons:
How Can Rubrics Make Grading Easier and Faster?From the Academic Leader:
The Case of the Unevaluated Online Courses
The linked webinar, The Academic Leader’s Toolkit for Evaluating Online Teaching is available on the Magna Commons database.
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Follow Teaching Tuesdays on Twitter.
Our Twitter feed includes links to further hints, tips and resources in the broader field of teaching in higher education.
https://twitter.com/TeachingTuesday
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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES AND RESOURCES
1....Teaching support resources at CSU
2....CSU Professional Learning
3....Bonus CSU resource - Lynda.com
4....Magna Commons Subscription
5....Links to previous bulletins
6....Subscribe
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1. Teaching support resources at CSU
You have access to a range of quality CSU resources to help you incorporate educational resources and techniques into your teaching. Check out the following:
- Teaching at CSU - the Division of Learning and Teaching website with links to resources for Teaching Staff, Online Learning, Assessment, Curriculum, Indigenous Curriculum, Workplace Learning, Technologies, Feedback and Analytics, and Learning Spaces.
- Resources for Learning and Teaching Academic and Professional Staff - searchable CSU database
- Learning Technologies - the starting point for a range of learning design options
- CSU Learning Exchange: Technologies in Context - a searchable database to promote online learning and teaching strategies
- The CSU wiki - a faculty-based source of learning and teaching information and strategies
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2. CSU Professional Learning
The monthly bulletin lists available Professional Learning opportunities from CSU Division of Learning and Teaching (DLT).
Teaching-related topics are listed on the
DLT Professional Learning Calendar
DLT Calendar
Open Publishing and Open Textbooks: The Value of Access (we!magine Open). Zoom online session.
13 November 1:00 pm.
Using CSU Replay (Panopto) for Resource Creation. Adobe Connect session.
15 November 10:00 am.
3. Bonus CSU resource - Lynda.com
an online subscription library that teaches the latest business,
creative and software skills through high-quality instructional videos.
Why not take a course at your own pace?
One example: An interesting course with videos averaging about 5-min in length that together deliver more than 2 hours of learning is Communication in the 21st Century Classroom. This course covers "basic theories of communication and power tips for essential collaboration tools like Google Drive, Gmail, Google hangouts, Collaborize Classroom, and more".
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4. Magna Commons Subscription
All staff with a CSU email address have free access to our annual
CSU subscription to the Magna Commons series of online seminars
Presentation handouts, full transcripts and supplementary resources are available for download if you don't have time to listen to the seminar.
How to subscribe
Staff with a CSU email address can obtain the Magna Commons CSU subscription code from Ellen McIntyre elmcintyre@csu.edu.au
Magna Commons suggests seminars to watch this month related to QUALITY: assessments, evaluations, schools, and courses. Seminars you might want to review as you focus on quality:
- Are You Offering Quality Online Education? How Do You Know?
- Customized Subject Review Rubrics: How to Take the Quality of Your Online Subjects to the Next Level
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Upcoming Teaching Tuesdays issues...
Share your own teaching tips article.
Contact Ellen McIntyre elmcintyre@csu.edu.au to offer your suggestions.
5. Links to previous bulletins
Folder with all previous issues.
Issue 1 Group Work; Issue 2 Engagement; Issue 3 Engagement;
Issue 4 Academic Integrity; Issue 5 Feedback; Issue 6 Feedback;
Issue 7 Active Engagement; Issue 8 Building on Prior Learning;
Issue 9 Student Diversity; Issue 10 Learning Outcomes;
Issue 11 Deep Learning; Issue 12 The Teaching-Research Nexus;
Issue 13 Improving Student Learning; Issue 14 Planning for Effective Student Learning;
Issue 15 Feedback for Teaching; Issue 16 Gamification;
Issue 17 Activities for Effective Learning; Issue 18 Dialogic Feedback;
Issue 19 Student Evaluation; Issue 20 Enhancing Learning;
Issue 21 Rationale for Assessment; Issue 22 Motivating Learning; Issue 23 Peer Learning;
Issue 24 Improving Online Learning and Teaching; Issue 25 Teacher Presence;
Issue 26 Teaching Current Content; Issue 27 Online Learning Model;
Issue 28 Maximising Subject Experience Survey Response Rates; Issue 29 LEGO for Learning;
Issue 30 Intercultural Awareness for Learning; Issue 31 Reflective Teaching Practice;
Issue 32 Reflective Teaching for Learning; Issue 33 Teacher Presence Online;
Issue 34 Assessment Alternatives
FoBJBS Newsletter: BJBS-News
FoA&E Newsletter: NeXus
Learning Academy, Division of Learning & Teaching, Charles Sturt University
Lecturer, Academic Development in the Learning Academy at Charles Sturt University
Email: elmcintyre@csu.edu.au
Website: https://www.csu.edu.au/division/learning-and-teaching/about-us/learning-academy
Phone: +61 2 6933 4726
Twitter: @TeachingTuesday
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